Human Resource has always been considered a completive edge in any industry, most acknowledge it, few take concrete actions and fewer take the initiate to produce such resources. Syed Iqtidar Zaidi is one of such business leaders in Pakistan, who took the initiative and put his money where he has firm believes. In a recent interview to the Technology Times, Syed Iqtidar Zaidi, President and CEO of Techaccess, shed light on the missions and visions of the new consultancy and training company he founded, “MovingMinds”.

WHEN I asked him, with the success of Techaccess in Pakistan over a decade now, with 200+ employees and ever growing in teams, regions and solutions what was so compelling that you took this initiative to diversify in consultancy and training domains. He said, “You put it right, by the grace of God, Techaccess is growing and keeps me busy, but I still have this thing closer to my heart that what is it that we need to do so that we could help others replicate the successes of Techaccess. I wish to see many companies having this success. Further, our youth comprises over 40% of our population, so we need to see what role we can play to make them employable in todays knowledge economy. Thus, I could only think of a separate platform where we could help share the best practices in management, technology and soft skills. That brought us to the concept of a new setup we call MovingMinds, and we kept two words agenda i.e. “improve lives”, by imparting best practices, consultancy and excellent learning environment”.

How did you find resources to dedicate to this new setup?

“Once you have clarified vision, it opens up doors and shows you many paths to choose and follow. To start with, I shared my vision with my senior team at Techaccess, and they helped further refine and define the scope of this new setup. We established a new office and brought in new teams to run the show on day to day basis. Thanks to God, we have already begun seeing the results, as in the short span of time we have served some national and multinational organizations. This has further validated my concept that people would welcome a quality consulting and learning organization.”

What are your focus areas in MovingMinds?

We seem to hear a lot of the importance of technology and in that hype we somehow undermine the importance of processes those organizations ought to follow. If you put technology to inefficient processes, it will magnify inefficiency, and if you put technology to efficient processes it will magnify efficiency and productivity, a lot. That is one area we want to take forward, and we found ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) offers and helps automate these processes, which will help you achieve “Effective IT Service Management”. Today we find computers everywhere, thus having proper processes in place will really help us achieve those efficiencies and benefits. COBIT is just another example for good governance.

Another area, I really dread we lack as professionals is that too much focus on technology or other professional disciplines and not doing much on personal development, be it communication, presentations, time management, stress management or what makes you happy. I wish we could spend more efforts on this important aspect of our human resource development, as this significantly impacts us all in our personal and professional lives. Thus, I look at it as very important aspect of our offering through MovingMinds.

Third dimension we have, comes to us naturally and i.e. Technology part. Our state of art learning center is an attraction for our technology partners like Oracle and Microsoft. We have already conducted quite a few those sessions. So yes, this helps us provide updated courses on technology.

How do you manage to get resources to impart trainings?

Well, that was another interesting challenge and we found that we have a competitive edge there too. You would be amazed to learn that we have excellent mix of trainers. Some of our trainers have PhDs in their respective domains, most of them have industry hands-on experience, and thus its not that we only rely on bookish knowledge but we provide industry experience in learning too.

Are you open to any funding ideas?

We are not looking for government funding; however, I think banks should come into this business as venture capital funding entails numerous benefits. E.g. the company, able to secure venture capital funds, can receive services that may include Business Consultations, Human Resources and Management Consultations. Many startup firms securing venture capital are able to thrive and become giants in their industries.

How do you see future of MovingMinds?

I am basically a very optimistic person. We still are going through infancy stage in MovingMinds life, but I know future looks quite bright and in todays world constant learning and upgrading of oneself is the only way forward. I am happy to keep playing my modest role in this, and look forward to see this plant of improving lives growing to become a strong tree like Techaccess.